Chapter 2: The Bait Part 2
California, Burbank, Buy More, November 21st, 2007
Mr Colt was here! And he had recognised Chuck! This was a catastrophe! His identity was compromised! His family in danger! He had to do something. Anything!
No, he couldn't panic! They were in the middle of the Buy More, surrounded by dozens of civilians. Dozens of witnesses. Even Mr Colt wouldn't dare to start anything here. Not when surrounded by…
He blinked. He flashed. The young man studying the flat screen tv? Hans Krause, former member of the Légion étrangère, working as a mercenary, wanted for murder in two countries. The woman comparing toaster prices? Antonia Fernandez, ex-FARC soldier, ex-Cartel hitwoman. The man looking at the latest Medal of Honour title? Jimmy Barnes, former Para, dishonourably discharged after an incident in Belfast. The man behind Mr Colt? Kevin Smith, wanted for armed robbery in three states. Takeo Kurosawa. Jim Lee. Franco di Matteo. Calvin Brown. Liam O'Brien.
He gasped for air. "Oh my God! They're here. In the store! Dozens of them!" he muttered as Mr Colt walked towards him with a smile on his face.
"What? Oh my God!" Morgan whispered next to him. "We have to warn Jeff!" He darted away.
'Warn Jeff'? Why would… Chuck's eyes widened. Morgan thought he had been talking about the demon hunters! "Morgan!" But his friend had already disappeared through the door to the staff area.
Mr Colt was now just one aisle away, and two of his men were moving to block Chuck's escape routes. Obviously, the mercenary didn't care about the few customers in the store who weren't his men in disguise.
Chuck was cornered. He needed a distraction. If he announced 50% off of all electronics for the next thirty minutes… No, he couldn't risk civilians. Wait a minute… Medal of Honour.
He ducked down in his booth and grabbed the stick with Morgan's clip, then plugged it into the PA system, turned the volume up to max and hit play. A moment later, the sounds of gunfire and helicopters filled the store.
And while the mercenaries dropped to the ground and drew weapons, looking for the attackers, Chuck crawled out of his booth and made his way towards the side entrance to the home cinema demonstration room.
Piece of ca…
"There he is! Get him!"
He should have known better than taunting Murphy like that! Chuck winced as he jumped up and started to run. Someone charged at him from the side, but a quick kick to the EA Sports display caused the mercenary to crash and disappear under a sea of game boxes.
Saved by video games! Chuck would have smiled if not for the half dozen other mercenaries closing in.
He threw himself through the door, then rolled over the - fortunately - thick shagging carpet until he bumped against the couch. No one had shot, though - they wanted him alive! Panting, he got up and ran to the exit. If he could lose them in the staff area…
He toppled the trash can behind the door as he passed it, and grinned for a moment when he heard a curse and the sound of someone crashing to the floor behind him. Yes!
The break room's poker table was turned into another ready-made obstacle as he dashed towards the stairs.
"Get him!"
Uh-oh. That was Mr Colt himself. The man was too damn quick on his feet for his bulk.
But Chuck was on the stairs now. He slammed the fire door closed behind him, then locked it with his manager key. Safe! He leaned against it to catch his breath. Now he had to call Sarah and Casey…
He blinked. Why hadn't Casey been in the Buy More? And Sarah… She should have spotted Mr Colt entering the store from Wienerlicious!
He pulled out his phone but before he could text Sarah, a huge blade cut through the door next to his head.
Shrieking, he dashed down the stairs. He needed to hide! Before they broke through the door! He needed to…
He skidded to a stop in the lower basement. "Lester!" he yelled, startling the man. "Stop this! We have to hide!"
"What?" Lester jerked and dropped a suspiciously empty beer bottle to the ground.
"Get him!" Chuck heard Mr Colt bellow above them.
"No! The killers!" Lester wailed. "Jeff! Jeff! They're here!"
"Come on!" Chuck grabbed him and started to drag him towards the entrance to the lower levels. "We need to hide below!"
"But… I'm not Jeff!"
"They don't care!" Chuck snapped as he pushed past the barricade meant to keep people out of the catacombs below the store.
He took the first turn right - had to break the enemy's line of sight as fast as possible. Then left - get away further from them. There was no light anymore, but he had his phone for that. Enough to run on. Another right, then left… oh, a ladder in an alcove to the side! "Down here!" he hissed to the panting Lester, then started climbing. "Come on!"
The ladder led to another tunnel - but further down than Chuck had expected. They must have skipped another floor.
"Chuck!" Lester landed next to him, collapsing on the floor and panting as if he had run a marathon. "What…"
Chuck shushed him. "Be silent," he hissed. "They can hear us."
"What… are… we… doing?" Lester asked in a whisper.
"We're running away," Chuck replied. He barely resisted the urge to add 'what does it look like we're doing?'
"I noticed. But…" Lester slowly got up, hands on his knees. "...where are we going?"
"Uh…" Chuck hadn't actually been down in the catacombs so far. They were ideal for vampires and other demons vulnerable to sunlight. "Ah, we…"
Light shone down the ladder. Flashlight! Mr Colt!
"Run!" Chuck hissed, dragging Lester with him again.
"They're down here!" echoed above and behind them.
Chuck muttered a curse and took the next tunnel right, left, left, right, straight… straight… "Whoa!"
He managed to stop in time before falling into a hole. In the ground. Behind him, Lester collapsed again, making wheezing noises.
"I think… we… lost them," Chuck said between gulping down air. He looked around, letting the dim light from his phone's screen play over broken down furniture and pots. "But I think we're lost, too."
"Lost?"
Chuck didn't have to look at Lester's face to know he was gaping.
"What do you mean lost? You lead us! You dragged me down here, and you got me lost?"
"I was running away from two dozen armed killers," Chuck pointed out. "Would you rather have been shot?"
"It'd be quicker than starving to death in the bowels of the earth!" Lester retorted. "In the darkness, once your phone's battery gives out!"
"We won't starve!" Chuck replied. "And we'll get out of here." His spy watch had a radio and a GPS locator, after all. And no reception, as he found out when he tried to use it. "Uh…"
"'Uh'? What do you mean, 'uh'?"
"It might take me a little longer than expected to get us out of here," Chuck explained. "Wherever 'here' is," he added.
"I'm eating you before I starve," Lester muttered.
"We won't starve," Chuck retorted. "We'll die of thirst long before we starve."
"I'll drink your blood before I die, then."
Lester was kidding. Probably. But it would be a good idea to get un-lost before long. "Let's see where we are!" Chuck announced with an overly cheerful voice. "Perhaps we find something useful."
He fiddled with his phone - he was saving the battery of his spy watch, even though it had a more powerful light - and checked their surroundings. Broken furniture - all wood and metal, no plastic. Some broken tanks and pipes, and lots of old barrels… "We're in an old distillery," he said. "Probably installed during the prohibition."
"They got booze here?" Lester sounded far more lively than a moment ago.
Chuck looked at the broken barrels. "Nothing left," he said.
And Lester collapsed again. "We're going to die here."
"We won't," Chuck corrected him. "If this was an illegal distillery, then they had a way to transport the barrels of booze." He walked along the walls. "Ah! See?" In the light from his phone, he saw old rails on the ground. "There it is!"
Lester joined him and stared at the ground. "We're in a mine?"
"No. But they probably used the same kind of carts to transport the barrels. We just have to follow the rails. We won't get lost!" Chuck said.
"We're already lost," Lester replied.
Chuck ignored him. They would get out of this.
Five minutes later, they were still following the rails and hadn't stumbled upon an exit yet. At least his phone's battery was holding.
"We're lost," Lester muttered behind him.
"No, we aren't. We're still on rails."
Lester didn't react to his joke. Was that a bad thing? Morale was critical for surviving in the wilderness, Chuck knew. They weren't exactly in the jungle, of course, and it hadn't even been half an hour since they had run away, but Lester seemed to be giving up already.
"This is all your fault. We're going to die here, and it's your fault!"
Well, he obviously had enough strength left to complain. Things couldn't be really bad yet.
Just as Chuck was about to make another joke to lift their spirits, they heard a piercing scream from ahead of them.
Chuck froze for a moment - only a moment! - then started towards it, following the rails. He had no weapon, other than his emergency pencil-stake, which he clutched in his hand. A little spy training and gear would come in real handy right now, he thought as he - cautiously - made his way forward.
And some night vision goggles, he added - the glow from his phone might be dim, but it'd still be easily seen at any distance in these tunnels. At least the tunnels were not too straight, which would help. A little.
Why exactly was he going towards the location of a scream, anyway?
He hadn't found an answer, but he hadn't stopped, either, a few minutes later, when he saw the body on the floor. It was O'Brien, one of Mr Colt's mercenaries. Still alive, Chuck realised with some relief, but unconscious.
And covered in some sort of… slime.
"Uh-oh."
Chuck didn't scream in panic. He merely gasped a little as he whirled, pencil raised, to face… Lester. Whom he apparently had forgotten. No wonder he wasn't a spy.
Lester raised his hands and took a step back. "Whoa! It's me!"
"Don't," Chuck said, in a steady and hopefully slightly menacing voice, "try to sneak up on me."
"It's Jeff."
"Jeff?" Chuck almost checked the unconscious mercenary again. "Jeff did this?"
"Yes, the, ah, slime." Lester pointed at the puddle.
Apparently, Jeff's demonic ancestry was a little more recent than he had led them to believe, Chuck noted. And Lester was aware of it - well, Chuck should have guessed that. "Paralysing slime?" he guessed. And how had Jeff managed to produce so much slime?
"Ah…" Lester flashed a forced smile in the dim light. "It was meant to be… recreational?"
"Recrea…" Chuck blinked. "He wanted to create drugs? You wanted to create drugs!"
Lester cringed. "It was just an experiment! We wanted to see what we could do with his, uh…"
Chuck really didn't want to know what bodily fluid they had used. He glared at the other man. "That was your food poisoning?" He and the other Nerd Herders had had to fill in for the duo for an entire week!
"Well…"
Chuck sighed. "And the slime is adhesive, right?" He pointed to the mercenary. "He's stuck to the floor?"
"Yes?"
So much for scavenging gear. He sighed. "So, Jeff trapped the tunnels. With his own slime. How much could he produce since he disappeared?"
Instead of answering, Lester nervously licked his lips.
Chuck closed his eyes for a moment. He should have realised that Jeff and Lester had behaved a little too well lately. "You stockpiled the stuff."
"We were trying to find a formula that didn't, uh, knock people out. Or worked as glue."
"In the tunnels below the Buy More." They were even more stupid than Chuck had thought.
"No, no! We had a lab in the basement."
Chuck stared at him.
"The old dry cleaning room - no one used it in ages! But Jeff cleaned it out before he moved down here."
"We're going to talk about this once we're back in the Buy More," Chuck told him. And he enjoyed seeing Lester cringe more than a little.
California, Burbank, Wienerlicious, November 21st, 2007
"I see two men outside. Guards trying to pass as loitering customers." And doing a halfway decent job of it, Sarah noticed as she informed Casey through the radio. They didn't look particularly tense, but that would change as soon as the two men she had taken out inside her store failed to report in.
"Two more at the back," Casey told her. With the three Casey had dealt with in the parking lot, that made nine enemies outside the Buy More.
"I'll take care of the two in front," Sarah said. They couldn't wait any longer - she couldn't reach Chuck either on his phone or through his watch.
"Careful. There are lots of potential witnesses."
She frowned. As if she weren't aware of that! Did Casey think that she forgot all her training and experience as soon as Chuck was in danger? But telling him off wouldn't help. "I'm going in," she said, grabbing a tray and filling it with a bunch of hot dogs.
The two men outside the store were watching her approach, but they were seeing a waitress delivering food, not a threat. Their eyes weren't on her hands but on the hem of her skirt. Where she wanted them.
She flashed them a flirty smile when she reached them, then faked a stumble and threw the tray into the first man's face. While the man screamed in surprise, she dived forward in a roll and swept the other man's feet.
He went down, and she jumped up, blocking the first man as he drew a pistol, taking him out with a palm strike to the face, then turned into a roundhouse kick to the second man's temple just as he was trying to get back on his feet. "Two down," she reported, dragging them into the bushes nearby.
"Going in," Casey told her.
Good. She straightened and entered the store. Chuck was inside. And God help Colt if anything had happened to him.
California, Burbank, Buy More Catacombs, November 21st, 2007
"If Jeff's doing this, then we're safe," Lester suddenly said. "He won't hurt us!"
"His traps don't exactly come with IFF," Chuck pointed out.
"What?"
"Identification friend or foe," Chuck explained. "They cannot tell us from the…" he almost said 'enemy spies' "...bad guys."
"Oh."
"Yes, 'oh'." It was obvious, really. Hadn't Lester ever played decent video games? "Anyway, we still need to find a way out of this maze."
"Jeff can lead us out!" Lester exclaimed. "If this is his work, then he has to be close! JEFF! JEFF!" he started to scream. "JE…"
Chuck's hand on his mouth shut him up. "Are you crazy?" he hissed. "If there's one enemy here, it means they are near as well." They wouldn't have split up too much.
"Oh…"
Was that a light flickering in the next tunnel? Chuck flicked his phone off at once. Yes, definitely a light. Someone was coming. "Jeff?" he yelled.
No answer. Which was enough of an answer. "We need to go!" he hissed, switching his phone on. They couldn't risk blindly running into a trap.
"Why did you yell? You told me not to yell!"
"I had to check if it was Jeff," Chuck snapped, already running. The rails led back and were safe - but they would also lead the mercenaries straight to them. "In here!" he hissed as they reached an intersection.
Lester was panting again - they couldn't run too far.
But they could hide.
Chuck dragged Lester into a small side tunnel, barely wide enough for one man. A few turns later, he stopped, sitting down. Lester fell to his knees next to him, chest heaving for breath. "We'll hide here," Chuck said, flicking the phone off. Until Lester had recovered, at least.
He touched the ground, then rubbed his fingers together. Lots of dust. Not so much as to make breathing difficult, but… Dust. Ground.
He switched his phone on again and let the light shine on the ground behind them. Footprints.
They couldn't hide, either.
"Lester, we need to go!" he whispered.
"What?" Lester sounded as if he was half-asleep.
"We can't stay; we need to keep moving," Chuck said.
"First, you say we need to run, then we need to wait, now we need to run again? You need to decide what you want!"
Lester really had a talent to get a second wind and a spine at the worst possible times. "You want to get shot?" Chuck snapped. "Get up!"
"But…"
"No buts!" They had to move. Chuck led them further down the tunnel. Just a little… He stopped at once, causing Lester to bump into him. "Watch out, here's a trap!" he hissed as the other man started to complain.
"Oh."
A quick check with the phone - which was starting to grow a little dimmer, Chuck noticed - revealed that there was a small strip of clear ground between the puddle of slime and the walls. "Careful," Chuck said as he gingerly placed his foot on the clear ground.
Lester wobbled and almost fell as he followed Chuck.
"Careful!" Chuck repeated himself. "It's not…"
A cone of light appeared behind them. The mercenaries!
One mercenary, Chuck realised - there was only one flashlight. And Lester was still inching past the puddle of slime. Chuck eyed the tunnel ahead, then clenched his teeth and sped up, passing the puddle in a few quick steps, then turning around to face the frozen Lester. "Jump!" Chuck snapped, holding out his hands. "I'll drag you clear!"
"What?"
"Jump!"
"Are you crazy?"
"Here they are!" The cone of light swung around, blinding Chuck. And suddenly, Lester jumped.
Chuck reached out, grabbing the man, and both tumbled to the floor as a shot rang out, almost deafening Chuck in the narrow confines of the tunnel.
"Don't move!" Chuck heard the mercenary yell. "I've got them!"
He had them. In the narrow tunnel, there was no cover. And the next corner was too far away. Not to mention that Lester, seemingly frozen - hopefully not shot - was still on top of Chuck. They were done for, as Casey would say.
Unless…
Chuck waited with bated breath as the mercenary stepped closer.
"No funny business or I'll riddle you with holes. You made enough trouble for us!"
"Not enough, apparently," Chuck said. He had to distract the man.
That caused a chuckle. "Oh, yes. I'll take great… Oh…"
Chuck watched as the man froze, one foot in the puddle, the light from his barrel-mounted flashlight suddenly pointing to the ceiling. Then he collapsed.
But more would be coming.
"Get off!" Chuck snapped. "We need to move!"
Once more, they ran - or stumbled, in Lester's case - through the dimly lit, twisting tunnel. Chuck had lost all sense of direction, but, so far, they hadn't run past any intersections. So, if needed, he could find the rails again. Not that he wanted to - the mercenaries had found the tracks as well.
But he clung to the idea that he wasn't completely lost in this maze. That he still could find a way out. Theoretically. If there was a way out in the first place.
He shook his head. He had to stay positive. They were still alive. They had escaped from the mercenaries. And…
...they had just reached another large room. Chuck stopped, causing Lester to bump into him. "Watch it," he hissed.
"What?" Lester managed to say between panting breaths.
"It's a large room," Chuck told him. "I can't see the other side with my light."
"What?" Lester pushed past him. "Can we stay here? Hide?"
Chuck checked the ground. Dusty. They were still leaving tracks. "No, we can't."
"But… Oh!"
A small light had appeared in the middle of the room - presumably; Chuck didn't know how large the room was. And it looked like… an emergency exit sign? What?
"There's the exit!" Lester cried out and started to run.
"No, wait! It's a..." Chuck yelled, but it was too late - he heard Lester gasp, then saw him topple into a slime puddle. "...trap," Chuck finished.
"Oops."
Oops? Chuck dropped to the ground, extinguishing his light. Who had… "Jeff?"
"Chuck?"
That was Jeff. "Where are you?"
"Here."
Jeff lit a flashlight, and Chuck could see him in the middle of the room - and almost recoiled. The man was covered with slime. 'Distant ancestor', yeah, right. Chuck snorted and got up, then walked towards the half-demon, carefully watching his steps.
"There are no more traps on that side," Jeff told him - after Chuck had already reached him.
"Good to know," Chuck replied. "You, uh, look a little…" He waved his free hand around. "You know."
"If people are hunting me for my blood, I will seek refuge in my blood," Jeff declared.
"And it has nothing to do with the fact that like this, you can see in the dark."
Jeff's eyebrows - what was visible beneath his slime layer - twitched. "Why are you here? You don't have demon blood."
"Ah, well…" Chuck cleared his throat. He couldn't reveal CIA secrets to Jeff. The guy would spread them online on one forum or the other as soon as he got access to his computer. And if he wouldn't do it, Lester would. "When a bunch of armed people came into the Buy More, I didn't want to stay around. And then they started to chase Lester and me, and we just kept running. Until…" He pointed at the stuck and slimed Lester, who had a very disturbing expression of bliss on his face.
"Oh, yeah. I didn't expect you to come here. Lester never did before."
Before? Ah. "So this is where you installed your distillery when you moved it." Chuck nodded in his best 'cool spy' imitation.
"How do you know about that?"
Chuck pointed at Lester.
"Oh."
"An emergency exit sign?" Chuck asked. "Where did you get it?" And why would anyone expect others to fall for such an obvious trap?
"Err…"
Chuck sighed. Of course. "You stole it from the store."
"I borrowed it.!"
"Like all the gear for your little drug lab here?" It was a shot in the dark, literally, in this case, but Chuck knew Jeff and Lester.
"Err... We're product testing!"
"I think you tested your own product a little too often," Chuck replied.
"You're probably right." Jeff nodded emphatically, sending a few drops of slime flying. "We should have gone gold with the product already."
Chuck rubbed the bridge of his nose. "No, Jeff. Selling drugs is not a good idea. It tends to attract the attention of people who want to kill you."
Jeff shook his head, and Chuck had to dodge a load of slime. "No, no! We checked - our product wouldn't be illegal since it's brand new!"
"I wasn't actually talking about the police, Jeff," Chuck explained. Jeff blinked but didn't seem to get the hint. Chuck sighed and added: "I was talking about people like other drug dealers who don't like competition." And after the mess Melvin had created, Caridad would slay another drug-dealing demon in a heartbeat.
"Oh."
"Yes, 'oh'." Chuck smiled toothly at Jeff. "Now… how about you get Lester unstuck and show us to the actual exit?"
"Oh… that'll take a while." Jeff winced.
"We can come back for Lester later," Chuck said. "But I really need to get out of these catacombs." He needed to contact Casey and Sarah as soon as possible.
"I think you should stay a little longer."
Chuck froze. He knew this voice. Mr Colt. But how had they been able to approach them without their lamps being visible… "Infrared lamps, I suppose," he said. Coupled with infrared goggles, they would have been able to see in the dark.
"Correct." The mercenary sounded amused.
And, as normal lamps went on and bathed the entire room in their light, revealing not only Jeff and Lester's pilfered equipment, but also a dozen mercenaries surrounding Chuck and Jeff, Chuck found that Mr Colt had every reason to be amused.
"You've made a lot of trouble for us," the mercenary said, taking a step closer as his men kept their guns trained on Chuck and Jeff. "But now it's time to…" He trailed off as his eyes fell on Jeff's slime-covered form.
Chuck could hear the mercenaries curse as they stared at the probably half-demon. "What the…" one of them - Vasquez - muttered.
"What is this?" Mr Colt asked. He didn't look shocked, but definitely surprised. And slightly disturbed.
And this was his chance, Chuck realised. He put on the best arrogant expression he could manage and scoffed. "Are you telling me that you came here without any idea about Project S?"
"'Project S'?" Mr Colt repeated his words with a frown.
"We like to joke that it stands for 'secret'," Chuck said, "though its actual designation is secret. But as you can see," he added as he gestured to Jeff, "it's been a success. Controlled contagious mutations."
"Mutations?" one of the mercenaries gasped. Smith, Chuck remembered.
"Unfortunately, one experimental subject escaped and hid down here," Chuck said with a shrug. "Sunlight hurts their new skin, so it's somewhat understandable. Quite a bother to track down, though, with all the traps." He raised his eyebrows. "You didn't think the traps were laid for you, did you? They were laid for us." He pointed at Lester. "As you can see."
"And who are you?"
"Agent Walsh," Chuck lied. "But you're asking the wrong question. Do you know which question you really need to ask?"
Mr Colt couldn't resist, though his scowl told Cuck that the mercenary would make him pay for this. "And what would that be?"
"It's: 'Have I been immunised to all the mutagens polluting the area?'," Chuck said "'Or will I turn into a mutant myself?'"
The mercenaries were glancing at Jeff and at each other. They looked nervous - some even looked scared. "Moan!" Chuck whispered to Jeff.
"Uhh?" Jeff sounded more confused than in pain, at least to Chuck. But Fernandez crossed herself and seemed to mutter a quick prayer. Others were trembling.
"You've been inside the contaminated area for quite some time. Long enough to be contaminated yourself," Chuck went on, trying to project the sort of confidence he really wished he had. "The mutation starts with shivering and sneezing. Then follows the itching on the skin, which soon turns into agony as slime glands grow and stretch, and it feels as if acid is covering your skin. It only lasts until your nerve ends die, of course. A day or two. Most test subjects survive, and some even keep their sanity."
"God Almighty!"
"Gottverdammte Scheisse!"
"It can be treated if you get help quickly enough - but I'm the only one who can authorise such help. The only one who knows where you can get help." Chuck grinned. "So, who wants to stay human?"
"How stupid do you think we are?" Mr Colt snapped. "You covered a friend of yours with the slime you made here, and then told us a bullshit story straight out of a comic book."
Chuck could see how the mercenaries started to recover. And they looked angry. Damn. Time for plan B. But he didn't have a Plan B. Or… "Trigger all your traps!" he whispered to Jeff. They could escape in the confusion.
"They don't work like that," Jeff replied. "They're shallow pit traps."
Meaning, he simply spread the slime out in puddles. Which Chuck should have known.
Mr Colt grinned again. "I will enjoy beating you to death with my bare hands," he announced, cracking his knuckles again.
"That would be a very bad idea," Chuck replied. There had to be a way out of this. Without fighting and dying to the huge mercenary.
But they were surrounded. Every exit was covered.
This really didn't look good.
"You should limber up a little," Mr Colt said, baring his teeth. "Make it more of a challenge."
"Uh…" Chuck licked his lips. "My doctor told me not to overdo it with sports."
That earned him a chuckle as the man rolled his neck. "I don't think that will be a problem any more."
"Uh…"
Suddenly, there was a cracking sound and lamps went out, plunging the room into darkness. "Hit the deck!" Someone - Caridad - yelled.
Chuck dropped, yelling: "They've got infrared!"
More cracking sounds followed. People cursed.
Then the screaming and shooting began. Chuck covered his ears with his hands and pressed himself into the dusty ground as bullets came far too close to him judging by the stone shards that he felt hitting his skin. He couldn't see a damned thing.
"Stay calm and fall back!" That was Mr Colt. "Rally at…" The mercenary was cut off mid-yell. That triggered more yelling. The mercenaries must be panicking with Colt out, Chuck realised.
Finally, the shooting and yelling stopped. Was it over? Or was that a trap?
"Hah! A dozen armed poachers down! Eat your heart out, Buffy!" Caridad yelled.
"Chuck, are you alright?"
That was Morgan! Chuck cautiously raised his head, but it was still pitch dark. "I'm OK but I can't see anything," he yelled back.
"Let me get the lights… should be somewhere… no… perhaps here? No. Where are the damned lights?"
"Don't blame me, I had to break them to save Chuck!"
"I meant the ones Jeff installed. Where are the switches?"
"It's on the right side." Jeff was OK as well, then.
"Here?"
"No, the other right!"
"There's just one right."
"My right."
Chuck snorted despite himself. Everyone seemed alright. Although… "Is Lester OK?" he asked. If they guy had been hurt while trapped...
"Oh… yes, he isn't hurt. I think. No blood," Jeff replied.
Chuck sighed with relief. Now they could finally leave this cursed place!
Well, Chuck realised as Morgan finally managed to get the lights working, they couldn't just leave. Not with about a dozen and a half knocked-out mercenaries who wouldn't stay knocked out for much longer spread around the room.
"Hah! I knew you were a demon!"
And a Slayer who had just noticed that Jeff's demon ancestry was a little more recent than he used to claim.
"Err..."
Jeff took a few steps back, and Caridad advanced on him, baring her teeth. "Posing as a harmless human while building your lair here, huh?"
"Err… We were just trying to make a few bucks!"
"You're a full demon? No, you're a half-demon!" Morgan shook his head. "And I never noticed." He winced. "Phil won't be pleased when he hears about it."
"Guys!" Chuck cut in.
"You fooled me!"
"Guys!" Chuck repeated himself. "We have a dozen armed bad guys we need to disarm and tie up before they wake up!"
"Right, the poachers." Caridad cracked her knuckles. "Time to teach them that Los Angeles is my turf! No one hunts demons here without my leave!"
"We can use our product," Jeff offered helpfully. "Takes them out and sticks them to the ground." He pointed at Lester. "See?"
Chuck grimaced. Jeff was about to get himself killed.
"Product?" Caridad asked, frowning.
"Jeff and Lester were experimenting with his slime," Chuck quickly explained. "As you can see, it didn't work out. And I'm sure they won't experiment any further, right?"
Jeff nodded vigorously, sending more drops of slime flying.
"And what were you trying to create?" Caridad narrowed her eyes. "Paralysing slime traps?" She growled. "Trying to capture people?"
"Err… no. We were…" Jeff trailed off.
"Whatever they were doing, they're not doing it any more," Chuck stepped in. He couldn't let Caridad kill Jeff. The man was a half-demon, had lied to them about it, had stolen from the Buy More to create drugs and was an altogether creepy person, but he still was a co-worker. That didn't sound very convincing, now that he thought about it. Although Jeff hadn't done anything really bad. At least as far as Chuck knew. "Anyway, guys, focus - armed people in need of securing!"
Fortunately, the mercenaries had plenty of zip ties on them. Which raised a lot of unsettling questions. At least the looted weapons she had claimed for herself had put Caridad into a better mood, though Phil probably wouldn't be happy about his Slayer getting such an arsenal. And storing half of it with the Watcher. But that wasn't Chuck's problem - he had to prioritise.
After the last stripped mercenary had been tied up with their own zip ties, Chuck stood up. "Now, let's get back to the Buy More so, ah, I can call the police about those robbers."
"Robbers?" Morgan asked.
"Yes. They came into the Buy More armed to the teeth, and they weren't hunting Jeff for his blood, so what else could they be?" Chuck glared at his friend and then jerked his head towards Jeff, who wasn't aware of the spy part of this mess.
"Oh! Of course, robbers!" Morgan beamed. "What else could they be, indeed?"
"Drug pushers trying to get our product?" Jeff asked.
Chuck closed his eyes.
"You were making drugs?" Caridad snarled.
"Err…" And Jeff bolted.
Great.
California, Burbank, Buy More, November 21st, 2007
Sarah stared at the tunnel in front of her. Who'd have thought there was an entire tunnel system below the Buy More? Which wasn't on their maps and blueprints? The general wouldn't be pleased to hear about this lapse. Next time Chuck told her about some 'extended basement', she'd personally check out the area.
Casey scoffed. "You could take out an entire company with a single squad down there. If you know the area and they don't."
She pressed her lips together. Chuck didn't know the tunnels, not well enough. "We're wasting time." Time Chuck didn't have - it had already taken too long to get the captured mercenaries to tell them what they knew about Chuck's escape. She gripped her SMG, taken from a mercenary who didn't need it any more, and nodded at Casey. "We'll do a standard sweep."
"I so missed playing tunnel rat." Casey grinned. "Had a great time hunting insurgents in Afghanistan."
Sarah snorted. Casey might be joking, but he knew as well as she did that the odds of finding Chuck in that maze were bad. But they had to try. She took a step towards the entrance, past the broken down barrier, when her phone vibrated. Who would call... Chuck! It was his number! "Chuck?" she blurted out before she could control herself.
"Hi, Sarah!"
She felt a wave of relief. He was alive. Safe - probably. "Where are you?"
"Uh… we're in one of the storm drains. Not too far from the Buy More."
'We'? She checked his locator - it showed up about a mile away. "How are you?"
"I'm alright," he said.
"I saved him!" a familiar and unwanted, loud voice cut in.
"Caridad! I'm talking!" Sarah heard Chuck complain.
"Tell her I solved their problem!"
Sarah clenched her teeth. "Chuck? What happened?"
"Uh… Mr Colt must have recognised my car and tracked it to the Buy More. He chased us - Lester and me - into the catacombs, where Jeff had laid out traps for the poachers. So, they stumbled into the traps, and Caridad took out the rest."
"Most of them! I took out almost all of them!"
"You captured them?" Sarah asked.
"Uh, yes. But they are a little heavy, and we only have one mine cart to transport them…"
"Mine cart?" She shook her head. "Never mind. We're coming to your position."
Chuck was safe. That was all that mattered.
But she couldn't help wishing it had been her, not Caridad, who saved him.
California, Burbank, The Castle, November 21st, 2007
"Congratulations, agents, Mr Bartowski. Capturing Mr Colt's entire cell is no mean feat. As soon as he has recovered, we will start his interrogation. And we will find out what he knows about Fulcrum."
The general didn't look as pleased as her words would make you believe, Chuck noted. Her expression when she mentioned the mercenaries' interrogation was actually terrifying. Or disturbing.
But everyone was smiling and nodding, including him. Because that was what you did when you had won despite the odds. And when you didn't want your superiors to ask too many questions.
"However, the unknown drugs they were subjected to is a source of concern for our medical staff and might delay the interrogations," Beckman went on. Her eyes narrowed.
"Unfortunately, we weren't able to find whoever created the drugs," Sarah said.
Chuck nodded. It wasn't quite a lie - Jeff was still hiding inside the tunnels. Whether that was because of Caridad, the demon-hunters, or both Chuck didn't know.
"I see." The frown on the general's face told Chuck that she probably suspected that this was related to the Council. "If you find out anything about this substance, inform me at once."
"Yes, ma'am," Chuck said.
"Good evening, agents, Mr Bartowski."
Chuck sighed and slumped slightly in his seat. "That could've gone better, I think."
Casey snorted. "With the idiots involved? Hardly."
That wasn't fair. Chuck's frown was ignored, though. "Well, at least I think this whole affair proved one thing."
Casey didn't take the bait, but Sarah did. "Yes?"
"That staying in the car isn't safe at all," Chuck explained. "As I said before, remember?"
Unfortunately, neither of the two spies seemed to share his conclusion.